Description
The Frost Dragons have 3 forms: The Song form, the Feathered Form, the Artificer Form.
There are two subtypes: the Silver-tipped Frost Dragons and the Black-Scaled Frost Dragons.
The Song form:
The draconic form. Their form is usually more spiky and resembling sharp icicles. Has a very musical sounding voice and often communicates through musical-like sounds in this form.
The Silver-tipped Frost Dragons are often a light blueish scaled color with some white in their scales. They often hunt near the snow and tend to blend in with their backgrounds during the day. Some fish, but most choose to hunt bears and foxes and elk.
On the other end of things, the Black-Scaled Frost Dragons are very dark in color with a deep blue or black in their scales. Some have white on their underbellies and spend a lot of time fishing in the sea. Some are completely dark in color and often hunt during the long dark season, hibernating during the light season.
The Feathered Form:
The bird form. They do fly very well. They have long tail feathers trailing after them. They have strong talons and are about the size of an eagle. Dive bomb style hunting.
The Silver-tipped Frost Dragons are often light blueish and white feathers with long tail feathers trailing after them. Their beaks are white.
The Black-Scaled Frost Dragons are also dark in color in their bird form. Their beaks are black. They are often easily spotted against the white backdrop and need to find shelter during the day. Often they chose to stay in the sky most of the summer/day or hide behind defenses. Many are more active during the winter/dark months.
The Artificer Form:
The human form. They use this form for building and crafting cities.
The Silver-tipped Frost Dragons are often very pale with light blue or white hair and bright blue eyes. Their skin is often pale as snow, but some are darker in color.
The Black-Scaled Frost Dragons are darker in color in their human form with deep blue or black hair and dark black eyes. Their skin coloration is dark as ebony, with very few being a lighter color. Often stay behind defenses during the long days and are known for being more active during the winter/dark months. They often provide defenses during winter, since their darker color is more easily hidden during the dark season.
Mixed:
Some Silver-tipped and Black-scaled have interbred and their children are often a mix in skin pigmentation, but otherwise tend to fall into one of the two groups for the rest of their traits.
Habitat
Lives in the cold tundra and arctic regions of the world, surrounded by ice and snow for most of the year.
Abilities
Magical Natural Abilities
Ice breath
A breath weapon. When a Frost Dragon breaths ice, their air is exceedingly cold coming from their lungs and the resulting breath out freezes the air in front of them, exhaling ice onto their unfortunate opponent.
Shapeshifting
Physical natural abilities
Black-Scaled Frost Dragons are better swimmers than Silver-tipped Frost Dragons are and often live near the ocean.
Regardless of form, frost dragons have an inherent resistance against the cold. However, some forms are weaker to it than others and the Artificer Form is often strengthened against the cold with furs from land mammals and other clothing.
Flight – all Frost dragons are strong flyers, except in their artificer form
Intelligence
Talons. Both in Song Form and Feathered Form, dragons have strong talons that let them easily hunt.
Hands. In artificer form, frost dragons have human hands with a lot of dexterity.
Diet
Meat – Fish, elk, bears, seals, arctic birds, whales, orcas, foxes, bison
Obligate carnivores.
Black-Scaled Frost Dragons often live on the sea more than Silver-tipped Frost Dragons do, while Silver-tipped Frost Dragons are more likely to hunt bison and large land mammals then sea. However, the two Frost dragons often work together to hunt down whales and other large sea creatures, with the Silver-tipped hunting from the sky and the black-scaled from the water.
Behavior
Social Structure
Matriachrical. Family units are typically a chief female and her mates, who can be either male or female. Male mates are lower in the hierarchy than females. Colonies have many family units, many of which are related to each other, but the relation between any two family units can be quite distant. In modern days, they have organized into cities with increasingly less relation to each other.
The typical divide of work is women, provide and males, caretake.
Hunting/Feeding
Females do most of the hunting on account of being much larger than the males. Males tend to take care of the children and eggs as their smaller size means they can more easily sit on and warm their eggs and children without crushing them.
Females usually hunt in bands, attacking large creatures like whales, bison, and monsters from over the mountains. They may team up to hunt large packs as well.
Males, however, can feed themselves and tend to hunt smaller animals on their own, like lemmings or hares. It's extremely common for males to go after rodents in their Feathered Forms on account of the lower danger. However, they are perfectly capable of hunting down an elk or an injured bison on their own.
There are two common forms of hunting – sneaking up and pouncing on the prey or taking to the sky and dive bombing on their prey. Pack tactics tend to take more use of dive bombing and individual hunting, sneaking and pouncing. The aim with sneaking and pouncing is to not engage in a long pursuit as dragons are designed for running for long periods.
Reproduction and Dimorphism
Females are larger than males and often stronger in their draconic and bird forms. In draconic form, females are much stronger and often have wider radiuses of magic. They also consider themselves more intelligent (not true) and more skilled (not true) then males. In their artificer form, they are often more flexible and dexterous than males, while male forms tend be stronger. In bird form, the male tends to have a bit more color along the chin with a yellow or red spot under the chin.
Females tend to have twins or triplets when they give birth and as such tend to attract more than one mate to help with the caregiving. Often the arrangements are 1 female to 2 or 3 males, but other family arrangements can occur, such as 2 females and 2 males. Commonly, they arrange themselves in family units of four.
It is not entirely unusual for 2 or 3 males to be paired together in their youth and marry the same woman or remain together for life. It's considered odd for them to not get married, but not as odd as if they weren't paired at all. Some women in groups of 3 females and 1 male, will give some of the eggs they can't care for to the paired males to raise. Often they can't care for more than 3 at a time, given that they are not typically in a unit of 4. 3 paired males stand a better chance of taking care of the eggs then 2 paired males. If the eggs survive the mothers that handed them over assume responsibility for taking care, financially, of the pairing and the children that survived, as well as matching the children to spouses later, but the pairing is not typically considered part of the mothers' household, while the children are in a limbo state of being both part of their mothers' household and a part of their adoptive parents household. Children from this arrangement are called Cuckoo Children.
Birth and Parenting
Frost dragons hatch out of thick eggs that must be maintained warm during the duration of the cold season. Usually, there are 3 eggs to care for, but if there are 3 females and 1 male, then there could be as many as 9 to care for. In this case, it's not unusual for some of the eggs to freeze to death and the arrangement isn't considered a good one.
Both types of dragons typically give lay eggs just before winter. Silver tipped frost dragon can hibernate on them until summer, if there isn't enough food, while both types, if not hibernating, switch off in pairs to take care of the eggs – one to guard, one to lie on the eggs, whilst the other typically 2, go off to hunt. Typically, the males will be the ones to lie on the eggs, while the female guards them. It is unusual for the Frost Dragons to shift into human form during this period as the larger form is better for protecting the eggs.
In modern times, Frost dragons will light a fire inside a stone home to aid the male in warming the eggs and the eggs are not as likely to freeze to death anymore. However, they still must be protected as the fire is not enough to protect the eggs from the temperatures in winter.
The eggs hatch in the summer as temperatures start to rise slightly. Silver tipped dragons start to awaken during this period, if they went into hibernation, while black-scaled dragons are starting to head towards hibernation if there's not a food. If food is scarce, the black-scaled Dragons will hunt in the summer and then they and their newly born children will enter hibernation until winter. Silver-tipped dragons on the other hand start to hunt for their children and continue to guard the nests, 2 at a time.
In modern times, food is less scarce and its unusual for a family to not be able to feed itself. Pastoralism has allowed the civilization to be less reliant on hunting and fishing, but both practices are still maintained.
Children take 2 years from hatching to be able to walk and talk, but only half a year to fly. They typically stay in their draconic form until about 4, when they first learn how to exert will over themselves and transform into other forms.
Fathers are typically in charge of the children – Frost dragons do not drink milk, but do require their food to be easy to swallow – and they are often in charge of teaching children their magic. Men are considered exceptional teachers for young children and often have the duty of educating children under 10 in their homes, while their mothers work.
Children under 10 are often weaker willed and the parents often don't allow them out of their burrow/homes until they are at least 10 due to this.
At 10 years old, female children start to leave the house and go to schools. All schools are taught in by women, as the societies view females as more capable of teaching their daughters the skills they need.
Male children, under a certain caste go into caregiving type rolls, such as servants or nurses for the wealthy. Many of these jobs are for unmarried men and low income. Most of these jobs do not allow men with children to remain working for them. Men are not allowed in the military. Men above a certain age that are still working are considered to be unmarriageable and not looked at fondly.
Above a certain caste, they remain in their homes to be married to their mother's (mothers') choice in partners. They are often taught by private tutors to make them more appealing to other women, but intelligence isn't considered a prized skillset for many future spouses.
When a daughter is 17 years old, she goes off on her own. Sons typically stay with their mothers until they are married off.
Other Notes
Silver-tipped Frost Dragons often hibernate during the winter/dark months though they are not obliged to. Black-Scaled Frost Dragons often hibernate during the light/summer months, but are also not obliged to. Most often the hibernation happens if there's not enough food.
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